1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an electronic still camera by which an image signal, obtained through an imaging device, can be compressed and recorded in a recording medium.
2. Description of the Related Art
In a conventional electronic still camera, an image signal obtained by an imaging device is processed to combine pixel values of selected adjacent pixel signals, or to pick up a part of the image signal, so that an image having pixels, the number of which is less than that of the imaging device, is generated. Further, there is known a conventional electronic still camera, in which an image obtained by the combining process or the picking-up process is recorded in a recording medium.
In a recording operation, using the above described electronic still camera, when a high definition mode, in which a high quality image can be recorded, is set, a substantial portion of the information contained in the high quality image would be lost if a compression ratio, with which the image is recorded in the recording medium, is set to a high value. Accordingly, in this case, even if the image is reproduced from the recording medium in a high definition mode, an image having a high quality cannot be obtained. On the other hand, when a predetermined number of images are to be recorded in the recording medium, if the compression ratio is set to a low value, thus selecting a high definition mode, the desired number of images cannot be recorded since the number of pixels of one image is too great.